Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, a method of controlling the same, and a storage medium.
Description of the Related Art
In recent years, an image forming apparatus has been equipped with various functions, and operations to be executed by a user have become complicated. In general, an image forming apparatus, which is often shared by a plurality of users, is provided with an auto-clear function for use in automatically clearing settings changed by a user, after the lapse of a predetermined time period so as to prevent a next user from using the settings without being aware of the changed settings.
When using such an image forming apparatus, each user needs to select a desired setting screen from an initial menu provided for the image forming apparatus, whenever the user starts to use the image forming apparatus.
For this reason, even if settings usually used by a user are predetermined or fixed, the user has to make the same settings, which is troublesome to him/her.
To solve this problem, there has been proposed a customization function which allows each user to make initial settings as desired. In this customization function, however, a user himself/herself has to carry out operations for customizing settings, and therefore if the user is inexperienced in using the image forming apparatus, he/she finds difficulty in the customization operations.
To overcome this problem, there has been disclosed a technique in which when a user sequentially selects a plurality of functions within a predetermined time period after user authentication, details and a preference order of selections are stored in association with the user (see e.g. Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2008-273126).
In this technique, when a display control section reads out customization information associated with a user from a customization information storage section, the display control section reads out and displays an initial display screen associated with a first-selected function (first in the preference order) of the plurality of functions on a touch panel.
With this technique, a preference order of selections of functions is taken into consideration for each of a plurality of users, whereby it is possible to provide initial display screens appropriately customized on a user-by-user basis.
However, in the conventional technique, each initial display screen is a screen associated with a function selected first in the immediately preceding use of the image forming apparatus. Therefore, in a case where the image forming apparatus has setting screens of a plurality of applications, if, after an initial display screen associated with one application is displayed, the application is switched to another application, it is required to make settings on a screen displayed after the switching of the application. This means that the above-described conventional technique does not always contribute to improvement of user-friendliness.
Further, when a first-selected function is not set such that it can be normally terminated or when an erroneous operation is performed, the displayed screen is reproduced as an initial display screen. This leads to the inconvenience that the user has to make settings again when using the image forming apparatus next time.